this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026

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In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet? (piefed.social)

submitted 3 months ago by Libb@piefed.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Imagine there is no YT, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Netflix, no Amazon, no Apple, no Google to to search the Web, no chatGPT. Imagine there is no TikTok either (even though it’s not US). Just imagine there is no ‘giant’ tech from anywhere owning any app or service that millions if not billions of people are willing to use.

A world without any of those giant (US) tech companies and services that many of us take for granted.

In that world, what would you use the Internet for? How would you use it? And how much time do you think you would spend online, compared to now?

(my own answer in the comments)

(page 2) 31 comments

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[–] Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Other companies would come in to fill the void and we'll have new tech giants, if not in the US then elsewhere. The point is nothing will change, these tech giants are what they are today is because they ultimately provides services that a lot of people want to use. I don't see them going anywhere.

However, for the spirit of your question, if we just remove the corporate world from the internet, the internet will be what it used to be 20-30 years ago. It'll be largely run by nerds and enthusiasts, and the user base will be a lot smaller and more niche based.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago

I would probably need a different phone (iPhone) and would replace YouTube with Nebula or something. Other than that nothing would change for me.

[–] pir8t0x@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Fediverse users are already prepared greatly if something like this were to occur 😹

And I wish this would really happen

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Lemmy. Peertube. Matrix. Codeburg. Mistral if i cant reach local AI.

Only real lack i have access to movies and shows, and losing steam for new downloads. So that time would have to be spent elsewhere

Of course too, how much of these services would be wiped out with out big tech for auth (sign in fron google, etc) and big tech from cloud services (AWS, Cloudflare, GCP, etc).

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

Straight back to ebaumsworld and geocities

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 points 3 months ago

Without ICANN, the domains (market & tech) would become so much less US centric. A dream!

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

If it's just ditching the big tech firms, I could probably survive well enough. Just trade out yt for something worse and probably worse for my mental health like Odysee ( where I can still find SomeOrdinaryGamers but no Dex or JeromeASF or Jokefish, sadly ). That, or end up trying to find things on peertube.

I don't think FurAffinity or Weasyl are controlled by large tech firms, so they'd probably be safe. And I'm positive e621 would be considering no big tech firm would ever want that furry porn site on their books.

I'd be safe on Wattpad since I looked them up and looks like they're Canadian.

I'd have to find a replacement for duckduckgo's noai search since Mullvad let go of their leta metasearch engine.

I'd probably slim down a couple apps because I wouldn't be able to use discord to keep in contact with the college club I'm in and wouldn't be able to play PvZ2 mods like Reflourished any more since it requires a version of the base app. Would have to quit the last Sintendo holdout for me ( Fire Emblem Heroes ).

I don't gotta worry about streaming services or normal people social media since I don't pay for streaming or the normal social media ( besides yt ). It's basically just here and Mastodon for me.

I'd be screwed because I'd lose access to all my Steam games. There goes a lot of what I do for fun on my computer. And my hobby of collecting CDs and occasionally older games would turn a lot more local since eBay would be off the table for me.

My time would probably just end up being less video watching and less computer game playng. That's assuming I don't get dragged down some dark hole on Odysee. My time online would probably be lower since I'd probably just try to spend more time watching things I've torrented. That, and probably free up more time for me to actually try and learn guitar.

If no US based services in general ( bank not included because that seems a little ridiculous IMO ), I'd end up probably missing out on a lot of stuff here on Lemmy and Mastodon, presuming one of the people I follow is on an American instance ( wetdry(dot)world ). That, and no more ways of seeing my favorite artist Panda Paco's work officially, at least as far as I know. But hey, maybe I'd have more time to devote to writing more fanfiction on Wattpad.

[–] pir8t0x@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

In terms of YouTube, I would use Peertube and Odysee or perhaps, GrayJay. Mastodon instead of Twitter, I don't even need Facebook so nothing for Facebook, I'm a pirate anyways so I don't even need Netflix, Amazon. I don't need Apple in any way since I use Android. If there's no existence of even an Android device, then I would either use a Linux Phone or just Linux on desktop. Brave Search or Mojeek or others instead of Google. Ask Brave (it's American so I guess it's not counted), Deepseek, Qwen etc. instead of ChatGPT. I don't use Tiktok so nothing here. I would probably spend just a little bit less time on internet (mainly because of disappearance of YouTube). For me, not much would change other than the YouTube experience. I predict I would most likely watch TV channels more once again due to not finding enough enjoyable content.

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